Idaho's Connection with the Friendship Train
by Dorothy R. Scheele

The Friendship Train, America’s gift of food to France and Italy after World War II, was an enormous and unmatched gift of kindness and caring .  (A more complete history of the FT is available on the home age of this site).  Even though the train traveled through 11 states, all of the states contributed to it.  Idaho contributed to this conveyance of generous and kindness...

          In Blackfoot and Firth Mrs. Mildred Gunnerson, Mrs. James Trotter, and Mrs. Henry Hjelm headed the drive which had been sponsored by the Lutheran churches.  In addition to food, clothing was also part of the campaign.  In Moscow, Idaho, the local paper The Daily Idahonian announced that it would continue its drive for food.  The paper had first announced the campaign on Oct. 27th, but the leaders canceled it because they did not believe that the food could be transported in time to meet the train in Utah.  As a result of this decision to cancel, so many phone calls were made to the paper that the office decided to resume the drive.  The citizens placed a banner on their freight car which read, “From Moscow, Idaho, (not Moscow, Russia,) to our friends across the sea.”  Dr. F. B. Robinson guaranteed the cost of shipment.

A truly laudatory gesture arrived from the farmers in Corn, Oklahoma.   They gave five carloads of wheat, nearly 8,000 bushels to the Train and then drove to a nearby town to have the grain milled.  The population of Corn was approximately 500, a fact which humbles and which shows that the Americans truly cared.   

The Gem state’s citizens’ monetary contribution was in the thousands although I could find no certainly of this figure.
The first vessel to depart for Europe, the American Leader,  left the States on December 7.   The captain was Allan C. Smithies.  New York’s Mayor William O’Dwyer gave a letter to the captain to give to the President of France, Vincent Auriol. 

Idaho participated in another phase of the spirit of the Friendship Train, the Christmas Ship.   Four states including Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Montana, and the territory of Alaska worked together to acquire enough food to send to Europe separately from the Friendship Train. 

The history of the Christmas Ship I will cover in a subsequent article.